This is a raw view of my life and how it's been so far. Staying musically active when and where I can!

Friday, March 4, 2011

Show Choir: The Later Years

I started working for my company with an internship in 2004. My company is a very large national/international sheet music company. They've been around since 1876. My company also supports a very large show choir camp that happens twice every summer. That's kind of when the love of show choir started all over for me. My suburbs boss asked me if I would be interested in going even though, the Indiana branch takes care of the whole thing. I said, yes!
My first time going, I was in awe. Why didn't I get involved in something like this in High School? I went to dance camp every year for dance team. Why didn't I know about show choir camp? Of course, I would have had to earn the money to go on my own, which is what I did to make money for dance camp.
I didn't go until mid-week. There's a concert every night at camp. That year was an anniversary. All of the performers in the Wednesday night concert were composers, arrangers, singers, dancers, basically professionals. The week went on. It was a lot of fun.
I've gone with my company to Camp every year since then, except one year when I only went for a day of set up. That was sad... and kind of a waste of my time.
When I moved to Indianapolis, I reconnected with a friend from high school that loves show choir. When show choir season started, he called me and asked me to meet him out at the Ben Davis Invitational. I was mesmerized by how far show choir had come along in 6 or 7 years. That was in 2006, and we haven't missed a Ben Davis Invitational since. Well, D. created a monster, I not only went with him on the Saturdays he could go, but I started attending the invitationals by myself. One, I had gone to every year by myself until this year, I missed it because I was exhausted.
Every invitational D. and I would go to, we would talk about starting our own group of Adults who love to dance and sing. One summer, we had gone to lunch together and were talking about creating our own group again. That day, we sat down, named our group and created an email address. Well, then, we had to cover the next hurdle. Where do we rehearse? Where is there a space we could use that has a piano and a place to dance.
The answer came from a dinner out with some friends. We were enjoying our pizza when my friend, B. brought up with all of these musical theater people, I was trying to start a show choir. I mentioned, yes, but we had no place to rehearse. Another friend mentioned, we might be able to use his church. He is the pastor, and he would just have to check the schedule with his secretary. I told him, that would be awesome!!!
We started rehearsing at that friend's church in January. We had about 20 people show up for that first night just to see what we were. We had some problems in the beginning getting consistant attendees. In fact, we went until about May, then, we decided to take a break for Summer. Then, we posted flyers all over the place and got a few new people to show up for Auditions. After the auditions, we decided to regroup to get more people. We had a few more weeks of people coming once and then, not coming back again. Then, D. started having some family issues and had to stop coming. All the sudden, I had a consitant core group. We made it! We did a little Christmas show. It worked out! I started, directed, and choreographed a little Show Choir!
We are still meeting once a week and getting prepared for our Spring Show!
I get to continue my little obsession with show choir, for now!